THE STRUCTURE OF THE CONCEALED CARBONIFEROUS ROCKS OF NORTH-EASTERN ENGLAND

Abstract
Summary: The pattern of block and basin, well known in the Carboniferous rocks of the Pennines, is traced eastwards beneath the later rocks. In Durham and Yorkshire the basinal areas remain strongly defined, with an indication that the eastern edge of the Askrigg Block is near Darlington, with the “Cleveland Basin” beyond. South of the Humber the basinal developments (Gainsborough Trough, Edale Gulf and Widmerpool Gulf) finger out into the block-like shelf area of Lincolnshire. The structural lines which bounded these basins in the later Lower and early Upper Carboniferous continue on to the shelf, but are not there associated with differential intra-Carboniferous (early Hercynian) movement on a significant scale. The later Hercynian folding and faulting (post-Westphalian, pre-Zechstein) does not appear to have produced large displacements east of the Carboniferous outcrops. Available evidence in East Yorkshire shows no major folding at this time, and although the well-known fold and fault structures of the Yorkshire–Nottinghamshire coalfield belt continue eastwards into Lincolnshire, they become progressively more gentle as they pass on to the shelf area. Seismic surveys beneath the Fenland show the relief of the Lower Carboniferous to be comparable with that of the overlying Permian. Within the concealed Carboniferous rocks of north-eastern England the vertical amplitude of movements associated with the early-Hercynian disturbances is several times as great as that due to the late-Hercynian phase. Both are more nearly of epeirogenic than of orogenic type.

This publication has 18 references indexed in Scilit: